The Manor Marussia F1 Team's Chinese Grand Prix weekend got off to a positive start at the Shanghai International Circuit today. During the course of the two Free Practice sessions, drivers Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi completed a total of 73 laps. Will's afternoon session was abbreviated due to an electronics issue, but an impressive turnaround by the team saw him return to the track for a final lap before the chequered flag brought the day's running to a close.

Roberto Merhi: "It has been a good day for me and I'm certainly feeling more at home in the car and more able to push. I'm pleased with the way the pace is developing as we work through set-up options and I look forward to continuing the work from today in FP3 tomorrow to prepare for qualifying."

Will Stevens: "Overall, a positive first day out on track for the team, which makes the electronics issue we experienced this afternoon all the more frustrating as we had been getting into a nice rhythm. Well done to the team for quickly diagnosing it and getting me back out on track, as it is important to go into tomorrow knowing that we have resolved it. It was disappointing not to get a run on the option tyre but there are some good signs, particularly in terms of the pace, so we'll look to build on that progress tomorrow."

John Booth, Team Principal: "Today has been a largely positive day. We've achieved a good deal of track time which has enabled us to focus rather more on set-up. Consequently we have seen a good improvement in terms of pace. There is still a lot of work to do of course, but it's encouraging to be back into a good flow. We did experience a setback on Will's side of the garage, as a result of an electronics issue, but in the end we were able to get on top of this much sooner than we thought and return Will to the track for a couple more laps before the end of the day's running. At this stage of our development every lap counts, although disappointing for him to miss out on the option run."

Check out our Friday gallery, here.